This weed is always welcome in my garden. It rivals any garden plant for its structure and looks really good in any bed.. As its name indicates it's action is on the lungs and the flowers are used in teas. You can spot this plant growing in the wild on any old rough ground. I spotted it outside Leicester station on a mound of earth in a builders yard. It self seeds on any churned up ground. Good to know - you can smoke the leaves in a pipe to help your lungs. The flowers macerated in olive oil and left in the sun or over a gentle heat is good for piles, burns sores. It has a reputation for helping with asthma - infusion of flowers that has to be strained as there are many little hairs on the plant, also slightly narcotic. One French authority says that if the flowers are boiled in milk it's a treatment for tuberculosis. Well who want's to give it a go??
The name Torches means just that it was used as a torch by dipping the long stems in suet which was then set alight and was used in processions or funerals. Hag's Taper means hedge not hag the old woman. Also called Candlewick plant and was supposed to be used by witches.
Oddly enough primroses and cowslips were called Pretty Mulleins and were accorded the same properties useful for lungs.
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